Trinity Square

In the Admiralteysky district of St Petersburg, at the intersection of Troitsky and Izmailovsky Prospekts, lies Trinity Square — a historic space that took shape around one of the city's largest cathedrals. The square's ensemble combines Neoclassical religious architecture, the barracks of a Guards regiment, and a monument to military glory.

The square took shape around the Trinity Cathedral of the Life Guards Izmailovsky Regiment, built between 1828 and 1835. Its original name, “Sobornaya Troitskaya Square”, is recorded from 1857 and gradually shortened to the familiar “Troitskaya.” In 1923 it was renamed Square of the Red Commanders, following Izmailovsky Prospekt, which had itself become Prospekt of the Red Commanders. In 1944, when the historic name was restored to the avenue, the square became Izmailovskaya Square, and it has borne its present name since 1957.

The dominant feature of the square is Stasov's cathedral — a building some 80 metres tall that can hold up to three thousand worshippers, its main dome considered the second-largest wooden dome in Europe. Surviving around it are buildings of the Izmailovsky Regiment: a riding school of 1809–1812 by the architect Luigi Rusca, an early-19th-century soldiers' barracks by Fyodor Volkov, and an artillery brigade barracks from 1907. Nearby stands an apartment building of 1901–1902, where the future academician Dmitry Likhachev spent his childhood, and beside the cathedral survives a brick chapel built in 1866 by the architect Ivan Shtrom.

In the 1920s the square was linked to bold architectural schemes: proposals were made to erect Tatlin's Tower in honour of the Third International here, and, after Lenin's death, a four-hundred-metre monument to the leader designed by Vladimir Shchuko. Neither project was ever realised. The fate of the Column of Glory proved more dramatic — erected in front of the cathedral in 1886 to commemorate the victory in the Russo-Turkish War, the monument was dismantled and melted down in 1930; a bust of Stasov himself later stood on its site before being relocated elsewhere. A recreated version of the column was only returned to the square in 2005.

Today Trinity Square remains a functioning spiritual and historical centre of the Admiralteysky district: the cathedral holds regular services, and the former regimental riding school is now occupied by an administrative and entertainment complex. The nearest metro station, Tekhnologichesky Institut, is seven hundred metres away, and the square is connected to the surrounding districts by tram and bus routes.

Trinity Square shows how the names and functions of a St Petersburg space have changed over nearly two centuries — from a Guards settlement and a triumphal monument, through Soviet renamings, to the modern-day revival of lost monuments. Its ensemble remains one of the most cohesive architectural complexes associated with the history of the Russian Imperial Guard.